August 19, 2012 - Dragonflies

This summer I’ve been able to add to my collection of dragonfly photos. Here’s a female Halloween Pennant. She has yellowish wings with brown stripes, a yellow stripe down her abdomen, and yellow stigma (the spots near the front tip of each wing). The male is similar, but he is orange in places where the female is yellow. The male’s orange and brown color pattern is the basis for the Halloween part of the name. This photo was taken near Cohasset, MN.

DragonflyPennantHalloweenfemaleCohasset20120727

The Blue Dasher is common over most of the United States. Adult males and females both have a blue abdomen with a black tip. They seem to have favorite perches and fly out from these perches to catch insects. One of the reasons to like having dragonflies around is they eat lots of mosquitos. This photo was taken at our home in northern Minnesota.

DragonflyDasherBlueDunningLake20120712

Several species of Meadowhawks are found in our area. The females and juveniles of many of these species look so much alike that positive identification can only be done by examining them under a microscope. But, I can tell this is an Autumn Meadowhawk because it’s the only one with yellow legs. I can also tell this is a female because of the egg spout (small projection pointing down near the end of the abdomen). This photo was also taken at our home.

DragonflyMeadowhawkAutumnfemaleDunningLake20120811

Many of the female and juvenile Meadowhawks are yellow, as shown in the last photo. Many of the males are red and just as hard to identify by species. This male is easy; the only one with a pearly white face is a mature White-faced Meadowhawk. This photo was also taken at our home.

DragonflyMeadowhawkWhotefacedmaleDunningLake20120811

I took this photo beside a small pond along our driveway and originally misidentified it as a Frosted Whiteface. After a more careful reading of the description in “Dragonflies of the North Woods,” I came to the conclusion that it is really a Belted Whiteface. The critical difference is the area I shaded in pink in the partial photo at the right. A Frosted Whiteface would have two rows of cells in this area but a Belted Whiteface has three rows of cells. Whenever I encounter an identification that depends on small differences like this one, I always think of an old joke. “Be like a taxidermist, pay attention to de-tails.”

DragonflyWhitefaceBeltedDunningLakecomposite20120714

While mowing the grass along our driveway, I saw this pair of Lake Darners fall to the ground near me. The male is the blue one and the female is the green one. They were obviously busy mating, so I was able to coax the male onto a stick in order to get a better background for a photo. To stay together, the male uses appendages at the end of his abdomen to clasp the female by the back of her head. How romantic!

DragonflyDarnerLakematingDunning20120810